Da Vinci Code priests bound for Hampstead

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Ham&High
14 January 2005

Father Gerard Sheehan will take over at Easter.

Caroline McClatchey

A CONTROVERSIAL Catholic organisation has been handed Swiss Cottage as its first parish in the UK.

Opus Dei, made famous in last year's bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, will be taking charge at St Thomas More, off Fitzjohn's Avenue. Widely thought of as a secretive order, Opus Dei entered the public eye last year with the publication of Dan Brown's novel, which described practices such as self-flagellation.

Opus Dei priest Father Gerard Sheehan will take over at Easter from Father Ian Dickie, who is to be moved to another parish.

Opus Dei already has a presence in the area with student accommodation in nearby Netherhall House.

A St Thomas More parishioner, who did not wish to be named, said: "It doesn't matter. I really don't mind as long as I can still go to Mass.
http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/content/camden/hamhigh/news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Newshamhigh&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newshamhigh&itemid=WeED13%20Jan%202005%2015%3A19%3A39%3A937

OH THE IRONY! The Maresfield Gardens area is part of the United Reformed Synagogue enclave, some of whose members are campaigning vociferously for the official placement of an Eruv in the area - which would mean cordoning off St Thomas More Church with wires on telegraph poles, similar to those used in the nearby Golders Green Eruv.

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1. From: Stranger than Fiction by John Cornwell, Sunday Times

Snip:
The Da Vinci Code excels, however, at taking bits and pieces of the truth, exaggerating and weaving them into outlandish factions, as the readers are taken on a breathless Blyton-for-adults juggernaut: "Secrets, secrets, secrets... Blah! Blah! Blah!" With lashings of blood, hidden treasure, initiates, adepts, scary professors, codes, sexual rites and oodles of unholy twaddle about Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene, and the Holy Grail being in fact "sang real", namely, blood royal, being their secret holy bloodline... Blah! Blah! Blah! And the Catholic Church wanting to bury all this stuff, which is of course encrypted in the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris. Or is it the church of the Temple in London? Or is it a cave carved out of the living rock under the Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland? And the girl finally kisses her man, a handsome expert on "symbology", destined to be played by Tom Hanks in the planned movie of the book. Blah! Blah! Blah!

The "killer fact" conspiracy of The Da Vinci Code features the Catholic Church attempting to quash through the ages the female nature of God, and a holy ritual involving couples bonking in the inner sanctum. The Knights Templar, according to Brown and a host of historical fantasists, were liquidated by the Inquisition to prevent such "secrets" from coming to light.

But while Brown has exploited a mania for cocktails of religion, conspiracy and mystery, his seductive factions are anaemic compared with the authentic secrets and conspiracies of Holy Mother Church. For such is Catholicism's rich inheritance, it inhabits far more wide-ranging and fascinating dimensions of the mysterious.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1429449,00.html